Topic Missy's Story Part 5: Innocence Annihilated

Here's installment #5. Thank you to everyone who has read these ramblings and been so kind and generous with your comments. You make my day... naahhhh... you make my life!

[b]Part 5: Innocence Annihilated[/b]

Gradually, Missy surfaces from her exhaustion-induced sleep, ascending through gray layers of semi-consciousness. A low insistent throb in her left arm drags her unwillingly from the darker depths of oblivion. She opens her eyes and she looks dazedly around her, trying to figure out where she is and how she got there. Her gaze lights upon Kaden who is sitting in a chair beside her, cupping his chin in his hand, leaning forward in his chair, examining the embers of the fire in the grate before him. Suddenly, the horrific events of the day before and Kaden’s tending of her resultant wounds flood her memory and she gasps audibly.

Hearing her, Kaden turns to her hastily, placing his hand on her chest to prevent her from moving too quickly and perhaps reinjuring herself. He smiles gently down at her and she looks at him, confusion and pain evident in her eyes. She licks her parched lips and she resists the force of Kaden’s hand, struggling to sit up. Kaden firmly holds her still, “Relax Missy… let me examine your arm first before you start fighting me again” his voice a low rumble in the room.

Missy reluctantly lies back again and she closes her eyes as Kaden’s hands swiftly roam over her, checking for tenderness or excessive swelling. Finished and finding nothing in Missy’s reactions to his touch to alarm him, he leans down and softly presses his lips to hers. Missy’s eyes fly open in shock and she looks deep into his eyes searching for answers in their violet hued depths. He smiles down at her and his hand softly strokes her hair. Missy shakily reaches up with her right hand and her fingers trace over his lips, scarcely able to believe those lips had willingly touched hers just a moment before. Kaden turns his face into Missy’s palm so that his lips kiss her skin and any lingering doubts in Missy’s mind are banished, at least for the moment.

She struggles again to sit up and this time Kaden assists her, knowing full well that if he does not, she will not cease until she has either achieved her objective or hurts herself in some way. A sardonic smile touches his lips and he shakes his head at her obstinate stubbornness. Kaden sits at the head of the bed and pulls Missy against his chest, providing a support for her to lean against. His arms curl around her and hold her securely.

Missy allows herself to be cradled in this way, knowing she probably has little choice, as she is still very weak and would be unable to mount much resistance if she was so inclined, which she isn’t. She sinks against Kaden’s chest and her head snuggles against him, moving so that her cheek is pressed against the skin of his neck. She inhales deeply, comforted as much by his familiar scent as by his tender touch.

Kaden kisses the top of her head and he murmurs in her hair, “So my little one, tell me what happened yesterday.” Missy stiffens and she shakes her head against his neck. She doesn’t know where to begin and even if she did, she doesn’t think she would be able to tell him of the horrible things that happened. She scarcely can think of them herself and she would pay a great deal to erase the events from her memory altogether. Her eyes well with unshed tears and her voice is thick as she says, “I can’t Kaden...to tell you would be to lose you...I just know it would.”
Kaden tightens his arms around her and he tells her insistently, “Missy, please...you know there is nothing you can say that would drive me away. There’s no one else around for miles anyway. Who would pester me?” he tries to tease her, to lighten the mood before continuing, “Whatever happened was not your fault. You need to tell me what happened so you can begin to heal. I will not drop this...you will tell me and you will tell me now.”

Hearing the command in Kaden’s voice, Missy knows he means what he says. He will not let her forget, he will make her tell him everything. A part of her wants to be unburdened from carrying around this terrible secret and agonizing pain. She struggles to catch her breath, to find the words that will explain.

Her eyes overflowing at last with the tears she has kept at bay thus far, her voice cracking, Missy haltingly begins her tale.

Early in the morning, Missy is puttering around the cabin, checking on the food supplies and making a mental list of items she needs to replenish from the nearby woods. She hums a song as she works, happy and content for the first time in a long while. Kaden has gone to hunt again and Missy also wants to contribute to their keep, not satisfied with merely being provided for. She gathers a pruning knife and a roughly woven basket made of dried reeds. She sighs softly, wishing she had her cloak from home as the morning is misty and quite cool. She leaves the cabin and walks briskly into the shadow-filled woods.

The forest is quiet and still, seeming to hold its breath in anticipation of some unknown event. Missy notes the absence of bird song or insect hum but pays scant attention to it, concentrating instead on finding enough plants and roughage to restock the cabin’s dwindling supplies. She frowns and keeps searching, not finding a lot this time of year as winter fast approaches. She spies a patch of columbine growing nearby and setting her basket down, she takes her pruning knife and cuts a few stalks. Just then, she is startled by the sound of a twig snapping dryly underfoot behind her. The sound reverberates through the still forest like a canon shot and Missy nearly jumps out of her skin. Whirling around, she is alarmed to see a group of three men approaching her through the shadows. Before she can do more than stand, the three men have encircled her, blocking her from either retreating or advancing further into the forest. Missy is aware she is still clasping the pruning knife in her hand and she holds it close to her side, sliding it up the sleeve of her sweater, keeping it from the strangers’ sight.

Her heart pounds and perspiration breaks out across her skin, moistening her upper lip slightly. Her eyes flicker from one to the other, wariness tensing her muscles. “Ohhh… good morn… morning” she stutters. Inwardly Missy curses herself as her weak shaky voice betrays her inward nervousness. The man in front of her, dark haired, and dark eyed, thick-chested and massively muscled, has a palpable menacing air about him. He smiles mockingly at her and licks his lips “Good mornin’ to you sweet lass” he purrs in an Irish brogue. “What would a wee lass like yerself be doin’ alone in this deep dark wood, hmmm?” The other two men glance at one another and share a smirk. These two are smaller in stature than the dark haired one. They are both fair skinned and have straggly long blonde hair. Their light complexions and colouring do not make them look any less threatening than they truly are however. Missy bends awkwardly at the waist trying to keep her eyes on all three men at once, but especially trying to keep her eyes locked on the dark one, the one who seems to be in charge, while collecting her basket and plants. She glances behind her, a quick over the shoulder look designed to allow her to pick out a path of escape should she get the chance to use it. She whips her eyes back forward again as one of the men takes another step forward. She clears her throat and says, “I.. I’m n…not alone. My... my friend is just… just over the next ridge” and she tilts her chin in a westerly direction. “In fact, he’s expecting me any second.” Unfortunately Missy is not a good liar and the men easily see right through her fib.

The dark haired man throws his head back and he laughs openly in her face. “I don’t believe you princess. I think ye be very much alone and not expected anywhere by anybody. Which suits us just fine...see, we happen to be lonely woodsmen who have been deprived of female company for quite some time.” He ambles over to Missy, grasping her chin roughly in his hand and tilting her head up to meet his eyes. His gaze rakes along her body, almost ripping off her clothes with the force of his penetrating dark eyes, “Ye’ll fit the bill quite nicely I think...” He leans down as though to kiss her but before his lips can touch hers, Missy brings the pruning knife up and she stabs him in the meat of his forearm.

Roaring in pain and shock, the dark eyed man lets go of his quarry and Missy wastes no time. Throwing her basket into the face of the closest blonde man, Missy whirls on the ball of her right foot sprints as fast as she can through the forest, trying to remember the way back to the cabin. Behind her she hears the dark eyed man command the other two to catch her. Fear gives her feet wings and she rapidly covers ground. She is familiar with these woods and her mind whirls as she tries to remember the terrain’s features and she tries to think of ways to exploit them to her advantage. Suddenly, her foot catches on a half-buried rock and she tumbles to the ground, barking her shins against the rocky ground and scraping her palms along the rough forest floor. Gasping, Missy struggles to rise and continue her flight through the forest.

She manages to clamber to her feet when she hears heavy breathing coming up fast behind her. Whipping her head around, she sees the two men have almost caught up to her in the scant seconds she has been incapacitated by the rock. She flies through the forest again. Her breath rasping through her mouth and nose, Missy runs on, turning this way and then that through the woods, dodging low slung tree branches, trying to make them whip behind her to further impede her pursuers. The laboured breathing and pounding feet of the men behind her steadily gain on her, however, and she is suddenly tackled from behind. The force of the heavy male body pummels her to the ground and he lands on top of her causing her breath to whoosh out of her lungs in a rush. Missy lies there like a land-locked fish, her lungs and body muscles spasming as she is unable to inhale for countless, seemingly endless seconds.

Struggling against the form pinning her to the ground despite her lack of air, Missy is roughly flipped over and a hard hand smacks her across the face. Dazed by the blow, Missy sees stars behind her eyelids and her struggles only increase in strength. Her fingernails rake down the face of her attacker and his sudden bellow of pain spurs her on to fight harder. “Hey Dario, get your butt down here! This one is a hell cat....” He slaps Missy again across the face and her head bangs against a nearby rock from the force of the blow. A deep cut opens on her forehead and blood gushes from this new wound, dribbling down her face and into her hair. Rough callused fingertips close over her throat and Missy’s vision starts to blacken at the edges as her air supply is cut off.

Suddenly her airway is released as the dark haired man named Dario catches up to the one who has pinned her to the ground and he slaps away the hand that is throttling her. “Stop it you fool! Don’t you want to take your pleasure with her while she is alive enough to give you a bit of a ride? If you strangle her all we’ll have is a useless corpse and that does not really appeal, not after these long months without the warm soft curves of a woman beneath me. Get off of the lass...I get her first.” Heaving the other man out of the way, Dario momentarily frees Missy and she takes advantage of this to flip back over and scramble to her feet once more. Before she makes it to her knees though, a strong hand grasps a fistful of her long fiery curling hair and yanks her head back, exposing her slender throat. The pruning knife she last remembers seeing embedded in Dario’s arm now presses itself against her throat and a low menacing growl emanates from the wielder of the sharply pointed blade. “Make one more move, utter one more word and I will change me mind about finding me pleasure with a corpse.”

Missy freezes in his arms, unable to move without impaling herself on the knife. Spinning Missy around, he throws her back to the rocky ground. Grunting at the other two men to hold her down, Dario roughly rips her jeans open and yanks her sweater to her neck, his rough fingers grasping and squeezing her tender flesh painfully. Missy valiantly struggles to throw him off, bucking her hips and twisting her body, but the hands that imprison her wrists and her ankles are too strong. She has no hope of escape.

The weight of the man above her shifts and he fumbles with the opening to his pants. Missy’s attempts to resist increase in strength as he prepares to mount her. Her thighs tense and she does her best to fight but her power is no match for his. She screams as he thrusts himself inside her over and over...she feels herself tear and a slow trickle of blood washes out across the tops of her thighs. A rough hand clamps over her mouth, stifling her cries and mashing her lips against her teeth. She feels her lips start to bleed as the edges of her teeth cut into them. She breathes through her nose as best she can, all the while trying to bite the hand that is clamped over her mouth so tightly, much too tightly. She is finally able to trap a portion of her attacker’s hand between her incisors and she chomps down with all the strength of her jaw. She feels her teeth sink into the thick edge of his hand and a vicious satisfaction surges through her at hearing his howl of pain.

Desperate to remove Missy’s clamped jaws from his hand, Dario hits her with his other fist again and again, smashing her around her head. Missy does not let go and even though the blood coursing into her mouth from his hand threatens to choke her, she maintains her dogged hold. Screaming himself now, Dario yells “Stop her you idiots!!! Get her off of me hand!” One of the blonde haired men takes a branch lying on the forest floor and he brings it down with all of his strength on Missy’s arm. Missy gasps, her lips automatically parting as her teeth unwillingly release Dario’s hand. She hears an audible crack as the bone in her left forearm snaps under the force of the blow of the branch. Hard blows rain on top of Missy now, as punches and kicks from all three men land on her. She curls up into a small ball and tries to protect her head. Her ability to fight the men flees from her as rapidly as steam evaporates from a boiling pot. Her vision dims and she mercifully blacks out, insensate to the brutal attacks on her body that continue as she lies motionless on the hard stony ground.

A long time later, Missy awakens to find herself alone and bleeding on the forest floor. No sign of her attackers remain, except for the pruning knife that lies next to her. Nearly all the light from the day has seeped out from the dark forest depths and Missy is cold and stiff from lying on the stony ground. Somehow she finds the strength to rise and fight her way back through the darkening gloom to the cabin where Kaden finds her and tends to her serious injuries.

Eyes wet and chest heaving with her ragged breaths, Missy concludes her tale, or at least as much of it as she is able to recall. She is unable to meet Kaden’s gaze, worried at the censure she is certain she will see there. She wipes her eyes with a corner of the blanket that still covers her and she wants to lie down and die. She is so tired, so devastated by this retelling of the awful tale that she longs for the sweet stupor of sleep, wishing never to have to awaken again. She lies limp in Kaden’s arms, arms that have continued to hold her close throughout the recollection of these painful memories. Kaden tightens his hold on Missy, correctly reading her body language and her feeble attempts to disengage and distance herself from the possibility of more pain. He feels her attempt to shut herself down, away from him, away from her own mind and he knows he must stop this from happening, whatever way he can. If he allows Missy to retreat from him now, he’s not sure how he’ll get her back and that thought is simply intolerable.

Carefully, he turns her around so that she is facing him. Her eyes resolutely refuse to meet his and she stares fixedly at a point over his shoulder. He moves his head until his eyes intersect hers. His hands hold her shoulders steady and he doesn’t break his gaze from hers, holding her still and silently communicating his sympathy for what she has endured. Too filled with shame and self-recrimination, Missy is unable to hold his gaze for long and her eyes drop to stare at her hands lying limply in her lap. Tears slowly trickle down her face. Releasing one of her shoulders to grasp her chin between his fingers, Kaden forces Missy’s head up until she has to look at him. He breathes through his nose, inhaling deeply for a moment, then he lets go of her chin to slowly trace the tracks her tears have made down her face. Missy’s shoulders shake with her repressed sobs and Kaden folds her to his chest, rubbing her back softly, encouraging her with his actions to let it all out...to let go of the sorrow, the hurt and the agony he can feel ripping her up inside.

“Oh Missy...you are safe now. I won’t let anything else happen to you sweetheart. You are not to blame for this attack. You have nothing to feel ashamed of. You did all that you could to escape. Is it your fault you are so tiny?” Missy hears the smile in Kaden’s voice and although she longs to accept the comfort he so easily offers her, she shakes her head and struggles ineffectually against his arms.

“No...no...don’t you see? That’s just it! I didn’t do everything I should have” she sobs. “I shouldn’t have left the cabin…Maybe I deserve this...maybe this is all my fault. Now I know for sure I’m not good enough to be near you...I’m soiled...defiled...worthless...” Missy continues to sob brokenly, filled with self loathing and disgust.

Kaden softly murmurs words of comfort in Missy’s ear, “You must have done something right Missy.. you are here with me now after all.” Missy curls in on herself and covers her head with her hands, unable to bear the sweetness of Kaden’s words and comfort, even though another deeper part of her psyche aches to be drawn closer.

Kaden lowers Missy to the bed, covering her once more with the blanket up to her shoulders. Kaden scoots Missy over on the bed and he crawls on top of the bed with her, cuddling her close, forcing her to accept the comfort and warmth of his body next to hers. Initially rigid and unresponsive, Missy’s limbs slowly relax against her conscious will as the exhaustion from emotional upheaval starts to take effect on her weakened system. She feels herself start to spiral in a sluggish lazy way down into the depths of sleep and she welcomes the waves of slumber that begin to wash over her. Just before she succumbs completely to her emotional and mental exhaustion, Kaden kisses her tenderly again and again, washing away her resistance and lingering doubts with the proof of his affection pressing insistently against her lips. He murmurs words of comfort, and reassurance, over and over again, hoping that Missy will come to believe them in time.

Kaden feels Missy’s tense muscles gradually ease and her limbs settle more heavily against his own as she slips into a dreamless sleep. He moves his lips to her hair, tears filling his own eyes now as he recalls the keen edge of her pain evident in her retelling of this senseless attack. He clears his throat and chokes back his fury and empathetic pain for her suffering, once more renewing his vows to avenge her and himself on these worthless pieces of scum. He commits Missy’s descriptions of her attackers to his memory and he mentally clutches the one piece of information that will undoubtedly lead to the capture of the others. “Dario” he whispers to himself...he will find him...he will make him spill the identities of his compatriots and then the blood of all Missy’s attackers will spill and darken the ground of the earth. Never more will Missy or any other innocent have to fear for their lives around these flea-bitten cowardly useless excuses for men. Kaden will see justice done, even if it means the forfeit of his own life in the process.